Increasing the Impact of Your Research

This important resource helps researchers in all disciplines share their findings, knowledge, and ideas effectively and beyond their own field. By pursuing the practical recommendations in this book, researchers can increase the exposure of their ideas, connect with wider audiences in powerful ways, and ensure their work has a true impact.

The book covers the most effective ways to share research, such as:

•• Social media—leveraging time-saving tools and maximizing exposureand branding.

•• Media—landing interviews and contributing to public dialogue.•• Writing—landing book deals and succeeding in key writing opportunities.•• Speaking—giving TED Talks, delivering conference keynote presentations, and

appearing on broadcasts like NPR.•• Connecting—networking, influencing policy, and joining advisory boards.•• Honors—winning awards and recognition to expand your platform.

Rich in tips, strategies, and guidelines, this book also includes clever “fast tracks” and downloadable eResources that provide links, leads, and templates to help secure radio broadcasts, podcasts, publications, conferences, awards, and other opportunities.

Jenny Grant Rankin is a Fulbright Specialist with two doctorates who lectures at universities and other institutions, such as the University of Cambridge, TED, and national research associations. Dr. Rankin is a prolific speaker and writer and has been honored by the U.S. White House for her work. See more at www.JennyRankin.com.

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This is a book full of secrets and shortcuts. It contains all the tips I gathered on my journey to share my research with the world. These strategies and sources allowed me to share my work widely (internationally and with large audiences) and in more compelling ways to help those impacted within my field. The most important reason for reading this book is to benefit more lives with your research findings.

The more time you have to devote to what you do best—like making new discoveries—the better for this world. So, this book is meant to save you time and introduce you to opportunities that can catapult your work’s influence quickly and effectively.

Whether you are a researcher, graduate student, professor, or other fac-ulty member, you likely have a vast store of expertise. Although your research benefits a field of knowledge, your findings need to be shared widely and effec-tively if they are to benefit our rapidly changing world. Sharing your findings outside the walls of your organization serves the field and provides you with validation beyond your immediate work environment. By sharing beyond com-mon research communication silos (for example, researchers sharing mainly with other researchers), your work can reach varied audiences to improve decision-making, policies, studies, and practices on an expanded scale.

This book will guide you in winning opportunities such as book deals, radio and media interviews, conference presentations and keynotes, awards, consult-ing roles, panels, government involvement, magazine articles, journal papers, TED Talks, research, and more. This book will not just give you generalities; it will give you the specific web addresses, submission deadlines, contact infor-mation, and guidance to make it easy to share your voice in a variety of venues and formats.

Chapters will also highlight sharing opportunities that require very little time on your part (such as registering for databases used by journalists to reach out to you, rather than you spending time reaching out to journalists). The book

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will help you strike a balance of sharing that does not detract from your time spent researching.

Enjoy the contributions, connections, triumphs, and influence that come with these endeavors. Most of all, enjoy knowing your research will help as many lives as you work to reach.

AUDIENCE

This book is for those conducting studies, literature reviews, or other forms of research within any field. This book is written primarily for three groups:

• Researchers and those who promote research (through labs, universities,nonprofits, think tanks, policy shapers, knowledge brokers, etc.).

• University professionals (higher education professors, etc.). • Graduate and postgraduate students who are conducting any form of

research, from delving into literature review to conducting their ownstudies.

Professionals conducting less-formal research within their fields can also benefit from reading this book, as can professionals seeking to make the complicated find-ings of others (like scientific research they curate) accessible to varied audiences.

BOOK STRUCTURE AND CONTENT

The book’s introduction provides a foundation that will help you with the other chapters’ endeavors. Subsequent chapters focus on different means for sharing your research (media interviews, conference presentations, etc.). Most chap-ters provide:

• Descriptions of opportunities (avenues through which you can share your work, such as the media, broadcasting, publication, events, panels, etc.).

• Lists of specific opportunities—for example, being interviewed onNational Public Radio (NPR)—via online eResources, including otherdetails (web addresses, submission deadlines, etc.) you will need in orderto apply for each specific opportunity.

• Tips to land the opportunities. • Strategies to perform these endeavors well (deliver a riveting keynote,

write a compelling article, etc.) so what you share has maximum impact. • Exercises to help you apply key strategies shared in the chapter.

This book covers ways to increase the impact of research after it has been con-ducted. In other words, this book does not cover aspects like collecting pre-study

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data to craft a study more likely to have impact in needed areas or getting a well-known person or institution to partner on a study so its findings are more warmly welcomed. Instead, this book will help you take any valuable body of knowledge and spread that information successfully so it can have major impact.

ACCESSIBILITY

This book is written for all researchers: from novice to veteran, from armchair researcher to prolific scientist, and from any field one can study. Just as this book coaches readers to write in ways accessible to an entire audience, I use language meant to make the book’s content accessible to all readers. You thus will find minimal academic jargon and will find examples any reader can under-stand. Do not mistake the absence of elitism as an indication that the book is not for those used to conferring in drier discourse. Rather, use this approach as an example for how you can make your own content understood by a wider and more diverse audience.

TERMINOLOGY

To avoid long phrasing within sentences, I will alternate the use of male (in odd-numbered chapters) and female (in even-numbered chapters) pronouns when not writing of specific individuals. No favoring of either gender is intended in any of these uses. For the sake of concision, I will also use “Google” as a verb, as it is shorter than “use a search engine to search for something on the internet.”

Some who read this book will be interested in sharing their knowledge con-cerning practice (e.g., what they have learned from working in the field) with a wider audience, whereas others want to share their research findings or facets with a wider audience. Some readers will choose to share their research-informed opinions with the world, whereas others will abstain from taking a public stand on issues related to their areas of study. This book’s concepts can be applied to any of these circumstances.

I will interchangeably use terms like research, science, findings, discovery, concept, expertise, knowledge, topic, and wisdom to describe what you are sharing with the world, but the book’s concepts will apply to any of these. Note that these terms can encompass findings you make from studies you personally conduct, but they can also encompass knowledge you amass through practice or by studying others’ research.

BENEFITS

Applying this book’s strategies will allow you to efficiently and effectively share your research with a wider audience in a variety of venues and formats. This will

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typically enhance your resume and career and likely will enhance your sense of professionalism and accomplishment.

However, the main benefit of this book is that sharing your findings allows you to inform more people, and people in a wider spectrum of roles, in order to assist more lives. Helping the world is a worthwhile goal and renders an impact that few other professionals can enjoy.

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Meet the Author

Dr. Jenny Grant Rankin is a Fulbright specialist for the U.S. Department of State. She has taught how to best share research findings at University of Cambridge, as a lecturer for the PostDoc Masterclass, the American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, and other venues. She has two doctorates, a PhD and L.H.D., and has delivered approximately 200 keynotes and lectures (for Elsevier events and national research associations) and has served on many panels (for the National Science Foundation, non-research events like International Comic-Con, and others). Among her presentations is a TED Talk, which began as a TEDxTalk at TEDxTUM before spending a few years on the TED website.

Dr. Rankin’s 11 books relate to sharing research, gifted education, sharing data, using data, and burnout. Her 145 papers and articles have appeared in 40 different publications, including Psychology Today (for which she writes an ongoing column), Los Angeles Times, and other magazines and journals.

Dr. Rankin’s many media appearances include NBC News, O: The Oprah Magazine, NPR, Newsweek, Good Housekeeping, HuffPost (formerly Huffington Post), The Washington Post, Reader’s Digest, U.S. News & World Report, Nonfiction Authors Association (NFAA), The San Diego Union Tribune, The Orange County Register, The Seattle Times, Sunday Star-Times, as well as frequent commendations in the media and congressional testimonies to inform legislation. She is an active member of Mensa (volunteering as Coordinator of the Mensa Gifted Youth Program in Orange County) and many research organizations, and she serves on multiple advisory boards.

Dr. Rankin has won Teacher of the Year and has been honored multiple times by the U.S. White House. For example, the American flag once was flown over the Capitol Building (the White House) in honor of Dr. Rankin and her professional contributions.

Dr. Rankin is regularly contracted by universities, school districts, nonprofits, government entities, and others to train faculty and staff on how best to share research, data, knowledge, and ideas with others. Dr. Rankin’s complete CV is available at www.jennyrankin.com/bio and her press page (including social media links) is at www.jennyrankin.com/press.

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Chapter 1

Evolution of the Researcher for Modern Times

Climate change is threatening wildlife. Bigotry plagues society. Guns are killing children on school campuses. Cancer refuses to go away.

Whatever topic you study, there is a problem your findings could help solve. Even if you study inchworms and your focus feels inconsequential to the world’s ills, your findings can advance understanding, spark ideas, and inspire future endeavors.

But no matter your discovery, it cannot help on a widespread scale if you are the only one who knows about it. And sharing your research can be harder than you think.

In fact, sharing your knowledge effectively can be downright counterintuitive. Consider that first example—climate change.

You are aware of climate change, whether you believe it is a problem or not, so we can conclude that scientists have talked extensively about it. But mak-ing you aware is not enough. Most researchers’ goal in talking about climate change has been to stop what they have characterized as an unnatural crisis, which requires people to act in specific ways. That is where the communication of find-ings hit a snag, because people still are not doing enough to stop environmental temperatures from changing.

Researchers have shared all the frightening data: polar bears dying, natural disasters raging, sea levels rising. This is one of the largest science communi-cation failures in history, because catastrophic scenarios are too overwhelming for people to handle (Stoknes, 2015). Grim statistics and forecasts cause people to detach from the issue—a mental state in which they are unlikely to change behavior. Though it is important to share data to provide proof, data shifts people into an analytical frame of mind that works against caring about or acting on the matter at hand.

An attractive story full of meaning, a positive image of a greener future, and fun ways for people to reduce carbon footprints are more effective at prompt-ing people to conserve resources and curtail global warming (Brunhuber, 2016),

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a major aspect of climate change. For example, Jon Christensen reworked an environmental report that 50 University of California (UC) scientists shared with the United Nations so that it empowered people with easy ways to contrib-ute, such as fun incentives to conserve water. The result was a straightforward, solutions-oriented report that has already changed behavior across 10 UC cam-puses and beyond.

Sharing findings can be especially hard when people are resistant to a mes-sage. Yet understanding our audiences allows us to approach them in ways they will accept. For example, a survey of 10,000 Americans indicated that evan-gelicals were particularly uninterested in environmental causes; however, 300 interviews revealed that evangelicals merely care more about people. Thus, decrying climate change’s impact on wildlife will leave evangelicals indifferent, but focusing on the human impact (like what happens to children raised amid polluted air and water) holds great potential to move these groups (Ecklund & Scheitle, 2017).

Knowledge of overcoming political stances can also help. When Americans were asked what makes a fact likely to be true, 40% of Republicans versus 72% of Democrats respected the verification of scientists, and 30% of Republicans versus 57% of Democrats respected the verification of academics (AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research & USAFacts Institute, 2019). This indicates a disparity in the weight people of different political persuasions give to researcher input. Returning to our climate-change example, as Democrats and Republicans get better at comprehending science, they actually become more polarized over whether global warming is a valid concern (Kahan et al., 2012). Yet a Yale study revealed that priming people’s scientific curiosity is such a powerful approach to increasing their acceptance of climate findings that it overcomes even politi-cal predispositions against such findings (Kahan, Landrum, Carpenter, Helft, & Jamieson, 2017).

The world needs researchers like you to share findings in ways that gener-ate interest and change. Knowing the best ways to do that will maximize your impact. That is where this book comes in.

The strategies within these pages will help you reach a larger audience in com-pelling ways, so people care about, understand, remember, act on, and tell oth-ers about your discovery (see Figure 1.0). Pursuing the opportunities in this book can enhance your resume, CV, and career, and likely will increase your profes-sional and personal satisfaction. However, the book’s primary function is to help you increase your discoveries’ benefit to the world, whether that means saving wildlife, advancing society, inspiring a cure for Parkinson’s disease, or helping achieve something else entirely.

Whatever topic you study, you have knowledge that is more valuable when it is shared widely and effectively. Keep reading to enlighten decision-makers, inform communities, improve practices, further research, and widen your impact.

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“Science and academia in general are not only a source of knowledge but also a guide to how reason can build a better society. Although most researchers do not intend to claim an ethics for humanity, they should nev-ertheless set an example of behavior for the rest of the population since they symbolize the wisdom of our epoch”

(Corredoira & Villarroel, 2019, p. 1).

Understand

RememberAct

Share

DesiredAudience

Responses WhenYou ShareResearch

For example, audience will:

• tell those they encounter about your work

• cite your work• link to your work on

social media

CareFor example, audience will:

• read/listen to yourevery word

• take what you say to heart

• want to know more

For example, audience will: • follow your train of

thought• known what your

words mean• grasp the

importance

For example, audience will:

• apply what you taught

• change behavior• investigate to learn

more• inform research

For example, audience will:• recall key details• your work comes to

mind when beneficial

• memory of your words is triggered

Figure 1.1 Desired Audience Responses When You Share Research

WHY AND HOW RESEARCH NEEDS TO BE SHARED

People hold firm opinions on topics without being able to demonstrate knowledge on those topics, and many hold beliefs that do not match academic consensuses. For example, only 37% of U.S. consumers believe genetically modified (GM)

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food is safe to consume, whereas 88% of scientists believe GM food is safe to con-sume, and consumers hold these beliefs regardless of whether they have knowl-edge on the subject (McFadden & Lusk, 2016). There are a number of reasons people outside (and even within) our fields are missing information or are misin-formed. Research on behavioral economics reveals that shortcuts (such as biases and heuristics) inherent in people’s decision-making processes lead to faster yet also frequently flawed conclusions (Kahneman, 2011).

Collective opinions, even when misguided, impact how the public thinks and talks about different issues, how the media frames the issues, how politicians make decisions related to the issues, how organizations do or do not fund research on the issues, how academics work on the issues, and more. Yet researchers’ effec-tive and comprehensive communication can enlighten audiences and overturn misconceptions. Going back to the example of GM food, informing consumers resulted in increased acceptance of GM foods, yet only when shared in specific ways, since mere statements from scientists are insubstantial and can even lead to backlash (Lusk, Roosen, & Bieberstein, 2014). Researchers can increase their impact when they share their research well and widen their reach.

This book is based on the premise that researchers should do what is best for the world (humanity, the environment, wildlife—whatever entity one’s research has a chance to help). To further that objective:

• Researchers should share their research extensively. • Researchers should share their research effectively.

This book helps with these endeavors, but the research community does not always encourage them. That needs to change.

Researchers Should Share Their Research Extensively

When Paul Revere learned British soldiers would march on the towns of Lexington and Concord, he went on a famous midnight ride warning commu-nities. Local militia would have lost the next day’s skirmishes, and possibly the entire American Revolutionary War, if Revere had instead kept his findings to himself. Even if Revere had left his silversmith shop to discuss his findings with those around him, it would not have been enough to save those who Revere had had the potential to help.

Important information needs to be shared with all those who can benefit. Only then can a discovery fulfill its potential for good.

Yet researchers often communicate in silos. This means that they commune with people in the same role (like researcher to researcher), field (like economist to economist), or at the same site (for example, the same university) when shar-ing knowledge, seeking knowledge, making decisions, and collaborating.

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Consider the impact of transcending traditional communication silos. McGrath and Brandon (2016) shared how family-integrated care (FiCare) researchers increased family engagement in Canadian neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). The authors published findings in scholarly journals, but they also enlisted main-stream media, blogs, social networks, a researcher website, project videos, and a variety of conferences and venues. This caused most neonatal care providers to be familiar with the intervention strategy and several more trials were conducted in Canada, the U.S., and abroad.

Sometimes sharing does not even occur regularly and fluidly within silos, and the problem can be long established. Consider knowledge management, which is the process of exchanging and using information to maximize its value. Kidwell, Vander Linde, and Johnson (2000) found that while some examples of sharing knowledge within higher education existed, they were “the exception rather than the rule” (p. 28). When Veer Ramjeawon and Rowley (2017) exam-ined this same issue years later, they found participants knew about knowledge management but more barriers than enablers to knowledge management were identified, and none of the universities had a knowledge management strategy. These same-silo and restricted-sharing paradigms limit awareness of knowl-edge available.

To meet this challenge, academics need to expand their reach when sharing knowledge. Researchers cannot share their discoveries only with readers of an academic journal, or practitioners too busy to read those journals will make deci-sions that do not benefit from those discoveries. Fields cannot keep findings to themselves, or cross-field innovations will never benefit society. Professors can-not share their discoveries only with their professor colleagues, or policymakers will make decisions that do not benefit from those discoveries. Additional exam-ples can pair different stakeholders to the same effect.

Transcending the boundaries of traditional silos can occur if scholars make efforts to share their expertise with audiences of all natures, within their own traditional silos and outside their silos. As you share with varied constituents, you can also learn from them, so your research best serves society. As Leigh Hall of University of Wyoming and Teaching Academia (www.teachingacademia.com) said, “People will . . . ask you questions, and . . . their questions can actually push you in ways that other academics are not . . . because they are going to bring a different perspective, so that’s another benefit to [interacting with the public]” (Hall, 2018a, 10:28).

Researchers Should Share Their Research Effectively

Research reporters Belluz, Plumer, and Resnick (2016) surveyed scientists of varied disciplines around the world and found that one of the biggest chal-lenges facing science today is that “science is poorly communicated” (p. 1).

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This book will teach you how to share your research effectively, but a com-mon problem must first be addressed: researchers sometimes choose to pre-sent poorly.

To examine this point, compare research doctors to medical doctors for a moment. Physicians are notorious for wretched handwriting. If you have ever tried to decipher messily scrawled prescriptions, you know many physicians fit this stereotype. Yet poor penmanship is not a quality that physicians should emulate in an effort to appear “more physician-like.” In fact, illegible writing is responsible for thousands of deaths each year (Chaturvedi, 2018).

Thus, it would be ridiculous for a doctor to say, “I know that indecipherable penmanship is less likely to help people, but it might make me look more like my colleagues, so I will write illegibly.” It would be unethical for the physician to say, “My fear over not looking like all the other physicians will take precedence over others’ well-being.” Yet researchers—who also have life-saving information to communicate—often choose looking like a typical academic over presenting their findings in ways likely to have impact.

Standing behind a lectern “like researchers do” is comfortable. Reading study details from slide bullet points “like researchers do” is comfortable. There is no risk that attendees will perceive you as not being the credible researcher you are. However, there are much greater risks in the conventional path. Communicating “like researchers (typically) do” risks not moving your audience to care, under-stand, remember, share, and act in relation to what you disseminate.

There are other ways to establish credibility than communicating in the same ways that researchers have traditionally shared their findings. Thinking you have to present in a boring way to be perceived as a credible researcher is like thinking that wearing a stethoscope will make others view you as a credible doctor. Either is just a facade you can choose to wear. If your ideas have merit, they—along with your credentials—will convey your credibility.

When I train researchers how to present their findings so people will under-stand, remember, and care about those findings, I am told (usually by one student per class, though others lean in eagerly for the answer), “The ways you teach us to present are far better than the ways researchers currently present their findings. But I’m scared to present in this improved way, because so few researchers do it. I’m afraid I’ll look silly.”

Their fear is not unfounded. People fear change, particularly when they do not understand it or feel threatened by it. The first man to use an umbrella in England was ridiculed and shouted at by people who did not understand why he carried something they deemed feminine, and he was pelted with trash and abuse by coach drivers who feared the umbrella threatened their good busi-ness on rainy days (one driver even tried to run over the umbrella-carrying man with his hansom cab) (Waters, 2016). But this did not mean the umbrella

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was a bad idea. On the contrary, umbrellas protect people from inclement weather. Those who did not understand the umbrella’s use merely needed to learn its value. The cab drivers feared the umbrella because they feared it was better than them: the umbrella enabled people to walk rainy streets without the recurring charge of a drive or inconvenience of finding a driver. The same is true when it comes to best practices for presenting and writing about research:

• Academics who come to understand the nature and value of better commu-nication skills become advocates for these improvements . . . even whenthey are scared to apply them.

• Academics who witness presentations that are better than theirs (or readbetter writing than theirs) are fearful when they feel they cannot commu-nicate their own research as well . . . but they can learn.

Even when our colleagues fear ways that are new or unfamiliar, we should not shun the chance to share our findings in ways that make people more likely to understand, care about, remember, tell others about, and act upon those find-ings. Just as we should not shun our umbrellas. Just as physicians should not try to write illegibly. Rather, the solution is for academia to evolve to embrace and practice improved ways to disseminate discoveries.

PRESSURE TO REMAIN CONFINED TO TRADITION

The examples presented earlier support the need to break from tradition. Yet academics often are not rewarded within academia for sharing research with non-traditional audiences. For example, although TED Talks are an immensely suc-cessful way to disseminate research and are in need of more academic presenters, giving a TED Talk has been found to have no impact on the number of citations a scholar receives in its wake and does not appear to promote researchers’ work within academic communities (even though it popularizes the research outside academia) (Sugimoto et al., 2013).

The reality of our world is that the way people get their information has changed in substantial ways. The internet, in particular, has opened countless new channels to reach and help others with your findings. For example, “every day scholarly articles receive 12,000 new mentions across social media, news, and blogs. That’s 1 mention every 7 seconds” (Elsevier, 2018, p. 1). Ignoring this reality is like the professor who says, “I shouldn’t have to entertain my students to teach!” and continues to lecture his bored students in monotone while scoffing at the professor next door who engages his students in exciting educational activi-ties more likely to result in learning.

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“Your job . . . isn’t to . . . crank out obscure academic publications by the dozens and amass a long list of peer citations. As scientists, your real job should be to make great discoveries and share them with the world” (Foley, 2016, p. 2).

—Jonathan Foley, Executive Director of the California Academy of Sciences

With all the opportunities for information exchange at our fingertips, it is commendable and encouraged that you use these avenues to share your wisdom with the world. Engaging with the public and experts in varied roles and in var-ied locales will multiply your impact. If you know something that is dramatically helping people in an area where your research is applied, why stop there? Why not let it dramatically help people who read an article you wrote, hear you on NPR, or watch your TED Talk—and let it dramatically help the people whom those people’s new understanding reaches? If you imagine the enhanced impact that these (merely three) new avenues for sharing can have, then you can imagine the enormousness of the difference you can make by seizing many of the two thousand sharing opportunities waiting for you in this book.

If you are higher education faculty, your organization might be one that frowns upon “nonacademic” contributions, or it might be one that actively encourages the exchange between researchers and others. Either way, you can be part of the movement to modernize what it means to be a scholar. Interacting with the broader public can lead to more funding sources, new data sources, fresh perspectives and ideas, broader networks, and better research (Badgett, 2016; Ngumbi, 2018).

Knowledge sharing leads to grants, innovation, sustainability, and other perks in academia, yet it can also lead to increased competitiveness, and the academic community is often distrustful or unwilling to navigate sharing (Annansingh, Howell, Liu, & Nunes, 2018). Even though academia should embrace better communication strategies and better communication reach, researchers face pressure in the field to stick to

• Traditional dissemination strategies (such as dull, text-heavy slides in theirpresentations, and wordy, jargon-heavy writing) and

• Traditional dissemination venues (such as speaking only at research confer-ences and publishing only in academic journals).

For example, universities commonly discourage researchers from sharing out-side of academia. Senior department members instruct scientists to not write

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for the general public, speak with journalists, talk at public events, or use social media because these do not lead to tenure or promotions, yet society suffers when researchers follow that advice (Scientific American Editors, 2018).

If you want to maximize the impact of your research, you must transcend these pressures. Share in ways likely to make a difference, even if some criticize you for doing so. If you encounter pressure in the field to “do what has always been done” or “do what everyone else is doing” when it comes to dissemination, you can be wary yet still find opportunities for more effective and extensive sharing.

For example, one of my students asked if she should use the PowerPoint tem-plate she had been encouraged to use by her Chair for her upcoming doctoral defense. As you can guess, it was a typical, uninspired template encouraging lots of text and bullet points . . . and I told her to use it. Offending or startling your dissertation committee is not the time to rock the research world with your unconventional—albeit highly effective—presentation skills. Better this gradu-ate student achieve her PhD now, after which she can send the committee links to her groundbreaking presentations, rather than risk delaying her PhD and all the opportunities it will open for her.

Established academics can also push for progress. When professors learn bet-ter dissemination strategies but fear colleagues will scoff, they can arrange for a training workshop on this book’s topic to take place at their institutions, or they can advocate for the department to read this book. This way, peers do not dismiss improved communication due to fear; rather, they are trained in how to be an engaging speaker, how to easily design improved slides, and other skills. Suddenly, the whole department or institution has an improved approach to dis-semination and can support one another in making their research more impactful.

You might find times to temporarily hold back, but the times to let your new dissemination skills fully shine are far more numerous. Academia and the topics it touches are compromised when we share poorly, and academia will not evolve unless we change our own practices and reshape what a “normal” dissemination of findings looks like.

Plus, an audience’s awe from a phenomenal presentation overshadows the audience’s judgement you are not acting “researcher-like.” I have never regret-ted an appearance or written piece in which I applied all I know about how to make my findings understandable, memorable, care-provoking, and actionable, no matter how unconventional the approach.

Consider Mike Morrison, a doctoral student at Michigan State University. He posted a video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RwJbhkCA58), to challenge the way research posters have always looked: text-heavy regurgitations of entire papers that cannot be easily consumed by the conference-goers walking past them. Morrison’s design displays the study’s main research finding in the middle of the poster in large letters above a QR code that conference-goers can scan with their smartphones for study details. This format allows visitors to learn something

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from each poster and quickly assess which posters appeal to their interests so they can approach those for more information.

The video quickly went viral; as I write this, Morrison posted it two and a half months ago and it already has 381,775 views. Scholars are starting to use this easy-to-skim poster format, sharing their redesigned posters on Twitter, greet-ing Morrison “like a rock star” at conferences, and even requiring all posters at a Harvard University Poster Day to adhere to Morrison’s design (Greenfieldboyce, 2019, 3:27). In other words, breaking from traditional-yet-ineffective confines can receive a warm reception when it is done effectively.

EXAMPLES OF EFFORTS TO CONNECT RESEARCHERS WITH OTHERS

American Geophysical Union (AGU) Thriving Earth ExchangeEcological Society of America (ESA) Public Affairs ProgramHarvard Graduate School of Education’s Usable KnowledgeMedia Centre for Education Research AustraliaStanford University’s Leopold Leadership ProgramThree universities’ Center for Research Use in EducationUMass Amherst’s Public Engagement ProjectUniversity of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education’s CPRE

Knowledge Hub

Your work is just as important as mine. People need to know about it. So get onto that stage, put your words into diverse readers’ hands, shape professional and public dialogue, influence policy, and pursue any other avenues you choose to have a massive impact on the world.

DOMINO EFFECT

A single domino can knock down multiple dominos, or even a domino 50% larger than itself. This is an example of geometric progression: if you started with a regular-sized domino, the 18th domino to be knocked down could be as tall as the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the 57th domino could reach from here to the moon (Keller & Papasan, 2013). As Malcolm Gladwell (2000) says of geometric progression, “Sometimes big changes follow small events, and . . . sometimes these changes can happen very quickly” (p. 11).

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Brace yourself for the domino effect to knock open opportunities for you to share your research. When one door of opportunity falls open to you and you walk through it, this leads to more open doors of increasing stature. Walk through any of those, and yet more doors of ever-greater venues await you.

Even opportunities that seem minor can have unexpectedly huge pay-off. For example, maybe you speak at a fledgling conference but happen to influence a government official who will take your idea regionwide, or you sit next to someone who connects you with a BBC reporter, through whom your discovery reaches thousands.

Every time you “step out” of your routine and share in some way, you increase the likelihood of more great things happening. In this case, it is more chances to share your research and impact more lives.

BALANCE AND FINDING TIME

That said, be cognizant of how you allocate your time. As you follow this book’s strategies you likely will get excited as you land more keynotes or book deals or whatever avenues you pursue to share discoveries with the world. However, amid increasing pressures of research agendas, you do not want to sacrifice the quality of your work in your pursuit of widening the audience that benefits from it. Thus:

• Be conscientious about striking balance between time spent sharing versustime spent on your actual research.

• Determine who can follow some opportunities on your behalf. If youwork at a university, it likely has a Press Office, public relations (PR) staff,or communications team willing to reach out to journalists, write pressreleases, and more for you. Meet with such an individual to discuss thisbook. Give him a copy in which you have circled opportunities and strate-gies you especially want to pursue and discuss how you and this person canwork together. University interdisciplinary centers and resource informa-tion managers (RIMs) are helpful as well.

• If you have written a book, your publishing house likely has a marketingteam or PR contact who can reach out to the media on your behalf, boostyour social media engagements, provide handouts for your appearances,and more.

• Read this book with a colleague and tackle your sharing efforts as a team.This could mean presenting together (such as during a conference ses-sion where you both get time to speak), co-writing articles, sharing

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opportunities (for example, every time you get on the radio, you encour-age the producer to feature your partner in another episode), or other ways to cut the dissemination workload.

• You can also collaborate on existing work duties to make it easier to carveout time to share your research. See the text box for a practical exampleof this. Successful collaboration holds great power to offset the increasingpressures of research agendas.

Remember, you do not have to do everything recommended in these pages. This book is written for researchers of all types and topics, so some opportunities might not feel like the right fit for what you, specifically, are trying to do. If a par-ticular engagement or strategy does not fit your goals, then I am not suggesting you do it. Only pursue what is right for you.

TIME-SAVING TIP

See Hall (2018b) for a quick video explaining one highly practical way in which you can collaborate with a colleague to save your time while increasing your dissemination output. Sign up for more videos like this at www.teachingacademia.com.

REPRESENTATION AND INEQUITY

This book celebrates the need for all researchers to share what they know so the world can benefit from their wisdom. Yet women, people of color, LGBT+ individuals, and others face discrimination in their efforts to share findings within our professional arena. For example, in an Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Grand Challenges Summit report on information science and scholarly communications, Altman and Bourg (2018) detailed how participation in the development and evaluation of scientific knowledge is heavily skewed by gender, language, race, and class and that scientific benefits are unevenly distributed in our society. It is important to be aware of unfair obstacles and how they manifest themselves, so we can find ways to ensure that fields benefit from diverse voices.

See Rankin (2019) for a two-part series in Psychology Today that shares statistics and suggestions related to this topic. The series provides a glimpse at the added hurdles traditionally marginalized groups face in higher education institutions, in other research communities, and when seeking to publish their work.

Speak up for yourself, knowing you have a value too great to be quieted, and speak up for others so their voices can be heard too. If you come from a place of privilege or power, think deeply on how you can promote underrepresented

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voices. Recognize when obstacles or microaggressions have nothing to do with you, and do what you can to circumvent obstacles. As Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm said, “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair” (Vaidyanathan, 2016, p. 5). I had the honor of teaching Chisholm’s mentee in one of my workshops on this book’s topic, and she described Chisholm’s encour-agement of her—a researcher—to increase her impact and widen her reach.

Areas of inequity will never improve without courageous dialogue and con-scientious actions. As researchers we are in prime position to further this charge.

PRIORITIZE EFFORTS AND BE SCRAPPY

Your workplace, specialties, preferences, and personality are all aspects that make your journey very individual. Thus, the way you use this book should be very individual. Not a fan of writing? Then spend less time tackling this book’s writing recommendations than you do on speaking and other endeavors. Not able to live away from home for a White House fellowship? Then do not apply for one. Just want to try a few new things without setting up a webpage or brand? Then start small.

Use this book for your individual circumstances. However, note that stepping outside your comfort zone and pursuing a variety of opportunities is most ben-eficial. For example, public speaking increases writing opportunities and expo-sure, and writing increases public speaking opportunities and exposure. Social media presence and speaking engagements are something you put on your book proposal to get a book deal. All opportunities covered in this book are likely to increase other types of prospects, which will benefit the reach of your work. In addition, mere exposure effect dictates that the more people encounter some-thing, the more they like it (Grant, 2016), so increasing your findings’ exposure could increase its acceptance by stakeholders.

Sharing your research in a variety of ways results in a more well-rounded resume or CV, more well-rounded experience, and a much wider net to catch additional opportunities to tell the world your important information. This ben-efits more lives. So, use this book as you see fit, but be sure to push yourself as you do. Be brave, and do not be afraid to be scrappy.

SCRAPPY TIPS AND FAST TRACKS

Being scrappy means being determined and thinking outside the box to find numerous, creative ways to share what you know. It also means aim-ing high (while simultaneously seizing more accessible opportunities) for maximum impact.

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Some call this moonshot thinking: shoot for the moon—10 times as high as might feel comfortable or typical—and see where it lands you. That approach worked for the first human to step on the moon: Neil Arm-strong acquired his pilot’s license before his driver’s license.

This book offers many “scrappy tips” that offer clever, surprising ways to achieve a goal related to various sections in the book. This book also offers “Scrappy Fast Track” text boxes that offer action plans to get you from point A to point B as fast as possible. This will help you hit your mark when you aim high. For example:

• Publish a book even though your starting point includes no publishedwriting.

• Give a TED Talk or keynote even though your starting point includes nonotable speaking experience.

• Appear on NPR even though your starting point includes no radiointerviews.

• Be honored by the White House even though your starting pointincludes no previous awards.

• Gain lots of exposure even though your starting point includes limitedbranding and social media presence.

You will have to scale up your skillsets quickly to achieve lofty goals (something this book helps you do), but these scrappy routes will help open those big doors for you. Be scrappy, walk through such doors, and see what happens.

HONESTY AND INTEGRITY

As you follow your path to maximum impact, commit to maintaining honesty and integrity. This means never lying on your CV, never taking credit for someone else’s work, never undermining a colleague, and so on. Even if an underhanded move appears to have a positive result in the short term, it will likely damage you in the long term, such as by hurting your reputation.

You will feel your best if you operate with honesty and integrity, and people will respond better to you and your findings. For example, “when scientists are transparent about any conflicts of interest, sources of funding, or impor-tant affiliations related to their work, public views of their integrity can be enhanced” (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2017, p. 25). You can still be scrappy (as covered in the previous section) but doso honorably.

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HUMILITY

I reject the common notion that researchers are superior to “the general public,” as if we have somehow removed ourselves from the latter group, and I find this humility keeps me open to new perspectives and better able to serve. Though this book focuses on ways to share research, it does so on the premise that one should listen to the needs of stakeholders with equal fervor. Doing so will improve your research and communication.

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RESOURCE TIP

The Committee of Publication Ethics (CoPE) (www.publicationethics.org) can help you navigate topics (like authorship and publishing) with integrity.

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